‘Chidrupa’ is the eleventh chapter, and the word is a compound of ‘chit’ (consciousness) and ‘rupa’ (form). It answers a single question: what is the nature of chit. The answer is that chit has no form at all, and this ‘formless form’ is what gets called chidrupa. The paradox belongs to the Upanishadic manner, like ‘सत्यस्य सत्यम्’ (the real of the real) in the Brihadaranyaka, 2.1.20. In modern philosophy Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote, in his closing sentence, that whatever cannot be spoken of must be met with silence. Ashtavakra’s chidrupa is another name for that same unsayable reality.Textual context
Form of Consciousness
Form of Consciousness · 8 shlokas
Until now the talk has been of dispassion. Here, for the first time, Ashtavakra tells you plainly what the knower is like on the inside. Eight shlokas, and each one is a ‘conviction,’ a settled certainty that loosens some inner tension on its own the moment it takes hold in the mind. What follows is a picture.
In the eleventh chapter the word ‘chidrupa’ arrives, meaning the form of consciousness. It stands very close to the ‘prakasha-vimarsha’ scheme of Kashmir Shaiva philosophy, which Abhinavagupta developed in the eleventh century. The Ashtavakra Gita was composed earlier than that, and it is a striking thing how many ancient streams of thought are already signaled in this one word.
So far
After dispassion, the form of consciousness. A direct seeing of the atman’s own nature.
Ashtavakra sets down the first conviction. Being, non-being, and change are all the nature of prakriti itself, and none of it is ‘ours.’ Whoever knows this all the way through grows free of distortion and free of affliction, and settles into quiet easily. Then the second conviction. There is a single maker, one consciousness standing behind everything, and no second creator here. Once a person knows this, every hope inside dissolves on its own, and such a person stays quiet and grows attached nowhere.
Shlokas 1 · 2
अष्टावक्र उवाच ।
भावाभावविकारश्च स्वभावादिति निश्चयी।
निर्विकारो गतक्लेशः सुखेनैवोपशाम्यति॥
ईश्वरः सर्वनिर्माता नेहान्य इति निश्चयी।
अन्तर्गलितसर्वाशः शान्तः क्वापि न सज्जते॥
The third conviction is tied to calamity and fortune. Misfortune or wealth, both arrive in their own time from daiva (destiny), from the meeting of karma and time. Whoever knows this stays forever content, his senses rest settled within themselves, and he neither craves a thing nor grieves. In the fourth conviction the same point deepens. Pleasure and pain, birth and death, all come from daiva; the one who knows this looks toward no goal ahead, stays at ease without any strain, and even while acting is never stained by the action.
Shlokas 3 · 4
आपदः सम्पदः काले दैवादेवेति निश्चयी।
तृप्तः स्वस्थेन्द्रियो नित्यं न वान्छति न शोचति॥
सुखदुःखे जन्ममृत्यू दैवादेवेति निश्चयी।
साध्यादर्शी निरायासः कुर्वन्नपि न लिप्यते॥
The fifth conviction opens the root of sorrow. Suffering is born of worry alone, from no other cause. An event in itself is neutral, and the worry laid over it, the ‘what happens now,’ is the real suffering. Whoever grows free of that worry stays happy and quiet, and from every side his craving dissolves. The sixth conviction carries you further in. We are not the body, the body is not ours, we are awareness; whoever knows this has all but reached kaivalya (pure aloneness), and after that the ledger of ‘what I did, what I left undone’ finds no place to rest in his mind.
Shlokas 5 · 6
चिन्तया जायते दुःखं नान्यथेहेति निश्चयी।
तया हीनः सुखी शान्तः सर्वत्र गलितस्पृहः॥
नाहं देहो न मे देहो बोधोऽहमिति निश्चयी।
कैवल्यमिव सम्प्राप्तो न स्मरत्यकृतं कृतम्॥
The seventh conviction gives the widest view of all. From Brahma down to a blade of grass, whatever there is, all of it is only us; whoever knows this becomes undivided, pure, and quiet, and the split of ‘this I gained, this I did not’ falls away for him, because what was ‘mine’ and what was ‘not mine’ are both held within that same one. And the eighth, the final conviction. This whole universe, packed with its many wonders, is in truth nothing at all; knowing this, a person becomes free of vasana (latent craving), and only a bare stir remains, a living pulse, and even so as quiet as though nothing exists at all. The eight convictions are recognitions, and with each repetition they take a deeper seat within.
Shlokas 7 · 8
आब्रह्मस्तम्बपर्यन्तमहमेवेति निश्चयी।
निर्विकल्पः शुचिः शान्तः प्राप्ताप्राप्तविनिर्वृतः॥
नानाश्चर्यमिदं विश्वं न किञ्चिदिति निश्चयी।
निर्वासनः स्फूर्तिमात्रो न किञ्चिदिव शाम्यति॥